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You’re yawning through a meeting when you suddenly notice a guy three seats away who’s trying hard not to stare at the cellphone he’s holding under the even.

Is he checking e-mail? Maybe — but now he might also be watching “As The World Turns.”

In yet another step toward the convergence of everything electronic, Verizon Wireless’s VCast Mobile TV service is spreading across the country, recently in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., markets (it’s beneficial in the Seattle market).

This is a tolerably cool trick: Even the much-worshipped Apple iPhone be possible to’t receive real-time TV broadcasts. Having tried Mobile TV for a week, I can repercussion that the attribute of the video is remarkable for of the like kind a small screen. If there were only a bit more beef on the broadcast menu, I might just be tempted to pay the $15 a month Verizon is asking for the official function.

But pristine things first.

One must, of course, bribe a new phone to receive Verizon Mobile TV. That’s on this account that the system requires a new type of internal receptacle. The model I tried, the LG VX9400, costs $200 after a $50 rebate and requires the usual two-year service stipulate. The cheapest alternative is a more resting on mere custom Samsung SCH-u620 at $99.

The LG one has one of the oddest screen and keypad designs I’ve seen. But if you be possible to work with the unusual layout, this nifty gadget can also crop the mobile Web, play MP3 symphony files, feel 1.3-megapixel photos, passage Verizon’s video-on-demand service, take . commands by voice and Bluetooth wireless remote and help you furnish your way with a GPS mapping service. It will even make phone calls.

Although it looks like a normal flip phone at first glance, the LG’s 1.5-inch screen surprises by swiveling 90 degrees to shape a “T” with the phone body. This provides a display with a standard TV aspect rate and exposes a smallish set of number keys. Unlike most cellphones, this arrangement puts the verse at the top and the navigation buttons at the bottom, which seemingly invites more mistakes than a standard keypad.

A button with a TV icon switches the LG from phone mode to broadcast, bringing up a cable-style on-screen schedule. Using the navigation keys, you can roll of paper through the schedule up to two days ahead or highlight a program to style up a synopsis or start watching. Once a show is playing, you can modify channels through the navigation keys in about two seconds.

The exhibit was remarkably sharp and bright under all but intense sunlight, although there was some pixelation and image breakup when the signal became weak. The most pleasurable scenes involve small groups or close-ups. But there’s only so a great quantity you have power to answer with a 1.5-inch screen — so action shows by zoomed-out scenes, travelogues and in extent views of sporting events are hard to make out.

In our building, the TV signal also tended to break up more the beyond in I moved from a windowed wall — more so than the phone memorable. I couldn’t get TV at all in our main news conversation room, close to the middle of the building.

The sound was generally audible through the external speaker, that projects out of the outer part of the phone.